The Who - The Who: The Ultimate Collection

TIMELESS CLASSIC'S

This has to be the greatest collection of songs from The Who , a lot of classic's like who are you and the rest of your favorites , great collection , highly recommended. May 25, 2008

A worthy collection of The Who's best

Recently, what's left of The Who (Daltrey and Townshend) showed that they could still produce interesting music, with their "Endless Wire." A great album? No, but a solid one. And this collection of 35 cuts in all provides a terrific introduction to The Who's oeuvre. There can be questions about why certain cuts were included and others were excluded, but this is not one of those flawed compendia with idiosyncratic selections. The 2 CD set begins with "I Can't Explain" and ends with "Eminence Front," with a lot of music in between.

A sampler:

"My Generation." An anthem of the 60s generation for many. A certain poignancy in this phrase:

"Talkin' bout my generation,
Hope I die before I get old."

Two of The Who did die before their time (Keith Moon and John Entwistle). The instrumental work is raw and pulsating. Roger Daltrey's vocal work is an exemplar of rock and roll. One of their earliest hits--and it still sounds good today!

"Boris the Spider." Come on, how could I leave this quirky song off this brief description of my reaction to a few cuts! An odd little number (one of the few not written by Townshend--in this case Entwistle did the job). The focus is on Boris the Spider, "crawling up the wall." Nice guitar work and cool singing.

Then, "Pinball Wizard." This is from the rock opera, "Tommy." What a toe tapper! Daltrey's singing is excellent; he shows a lot of growth as a singer from the early days of the group. This is about a character who "sure plays a mean pinball." Didn't Elton John later have a hit with a cover of this song? I recall his version being fine, but this is the real deal.

"Baba O'Riley." I used to think that the name of this song was "Teenage Wasteland," for references to that phrase in the latter part of this 5 minute piece of great music. The sound shows a maturing of The Who as a group. The keyboard in this song adds a delicious element t5o the music. The guitar work is neat, Moon's drumming is great, and Daltrey's singing measures up. Again, a great 5 minutes of rock and roll.

And on it goes. . . . "Won't Get Fooled Again," "The Kids Are Alright," "Happy Jack," "I Can See for Miles," "Summertime Blues," "Long Live Rock," "Squeeze Box," "You Better You Bet," "Who Are You?," and so on.

Who could resist such a plenitude of The Who? April 12, 2008

Nice compilation

All the big hits and some lesser known tunes as well. A must for devotees of the British Invasion era. April 9, 2008

Great music, completely unlistenable remastering

I was recommended this collection as the best compilation of The Who hits. And indeed, the selection of songs is great.

But what does that matter when the listening experience is dull and flat. If you turn it up, everything is getting loud and tiresome with no impact. If you turn it down there is still no impact, and it is still tiresome and dull. I simply can not listen to this. It may work as background noise when you are cleaning your house, but for an enjoyable listening experience, go digging for original, non-remastered releases.

True musical enjoyment is impossible with this release. March 26, 2008

Great Start - Ignore the Battle

I have to say, I'm laying somewhere in the middle of these extremists, I know I'm not the only one. The Battle between classic music and contemporary will wage to the ends of the Earth. Note, I'm listening to Hooligans on vinyl as I'm writing this. Seems to be necessary to point this out, because this is the reason to buy this album.

I purchased this because I owned all of my Who albums on Vinyl and I was looking for something a little easy and portable and it did the trick, but I was a Who fan to begin with. If your looking to get into the Who, this is a good start, it is necessary to pick up Who's Next, Tommy, etc. And if your really curious about rock music history pick up some of their embarrassing albums like It's Hard. You'll get the true idea of a band, these guys were very talented (the surviving still are), and tried a lot, and were for the most part successful, some of their music doesn't translate well to today, nothing wrong with that, even the sacred Beatles made some missteps.

I just hope to help some people that want o see what the Who were all about, to decide if this is a worthwhile album, it is.

I just wanted to say a few things to the people warring on this review site. The Who are a great band, but they are not the end all of music, they had their influences (Buddy Holly, Muddy Waters), as well as influenced many others, Pete Townsend himself said that he feels that "Nevermind the Bollocks here's the Sex Pistols" was the best album ever made. Fact is, the Who influenced and they were in turn influenced themselves, they are an important cog in the ever moving machine that is modern music and art. This album is a decent introduction, by no means complete, but that's why it's an intoduction. Listen to it yourself and ignore all the hype of "best band ever" or "this sucks check out dire straits". These people just want attention. Check it out yourself and see if they appeal to you.

I know I've loved them for the better part of my life. February 3, 2008

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